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| Africa North |
| Benghazi violence: assassinations and lawlessness as Benina clashes continue |
| 2014-09-24 |
| [Libya Herald] Violence has continued in Benghazi in the aftermath of Friday's unprecedented wave of murders with the killing of a a holy man and an activist. Local activist Ali Al-Misrati was shot and killed by unknown assailants outside Shebna Mosque yesterday. He was taken to Benghazi Medical Centre (BMC) where he was pronounced dead. He's dead, Jim! on arrival. The city is still reeling from the deaths of 18-year-old blogger and activist Tawfiq Bensaud and his 17-year-old friend Sami Al-Kwafi, also an activist, who were killed along with eight others on Friday. Sheikh Salim Bayu, a Salafist imam at the Saud Bin Zama Mosque was shot and killed in Hay Salem as he left Isha prayers last night. A colleague of Bayu was also caught up in the attack. He is receiving treatment at BMC and said to be in a critical condition. Religious leaders, particularly Salafists ...Salafists are ostentatiously devout Moslems who figure the ostentation of their piety gives them the right to tell others how to do it and to kill those who don't listen to them... , have been targeted in liquidations in recent months. Head of Saiqa Special Forces ...Libya's elite army unit, insofar as they have one, formed from a mixture of paratroopers and commandos. The group emerged from a militia with the same name in 2010. It now numbers a few thousand and reports to the Ministry of Defence. It deployed in Benghazi in an attempt to control the carnage. As a result, it has been attacked and several of its officers murdered. The force is popular in Benghazi for its stance against Ansar al-Sharia group... Investigations Unit Fadel Al-Hassi told the Libya Herald that kidnappings and liquidations in Benghazi had reached "unbelievably dangerous levels". He said that assassins were able to carry out attacks with complete impunity and that residents needed to be wary of fake checkpoints which have been used by gunnies as a pretext to stop and then kill their targets. He warned that individuals should not risk being out of their homes after dark. In a sign of the increasing lawlessness in Benghazi, LD 132,000 was robbed today from the Commerce and Development Bank branch in Hadaiq district. Local residents reported that masked gunnies had entered the bank, cajoling customers with their weapons before making off with the cash. Fighting in the hotspots of Buatni and Gwarsha, the source of much of the city's instability, has continued in recent days. The festivities, which erupted in Buatni at the end of Ramadan, appear to have reached a stalemate with neither Ansar al-Sharia ...a Salafist militia which claims it is not part of al-Qaeda, even though it works about the same and for the same ends. There are groups of the same name in Libyaand Yemen, with the Libyan versions currently most active. Tunisia's Shabaab al-Tawhid started out an Ansar al-Sharia and changed its name in early 2014. It still uses the old name now and then, probably because the stationery's not all used up and the web site hasn't expired yet... nor Operation Dignity able to take the upper hand. Despite several attempts by Ansar and its allies to take hold of Benina Airport and a nearby air defence base, they have been repulsed each time. Now the Islamist group seems more intent on destroying the Benina, firing long-range grad missiles and mortars towards it. Operation Dignity responds to the attacks with |
| Posted by:Fred |
| #5 Exactly! |
| Posted by: borgboy 2014-09-24 13:11 |
| #4 Daffy Duck did the same thing the Italians did for decades. The blind anti-colonialists will never acknowledge that anarchy, chaos, and lawlessness were often displaced by those evil |
| Posted by: Procopius2k 2014-09-24 10:22 |
| #3 Gee, Daffy Duck kept them under control. Wha hoppened? |
| Posted by: AlanC 2014-09-24 07:13 |
| #2 The true meaning of Devout. Islam sets the standard. |
| Posted by: Big Thromoth3646 2014-09-24 05:23 |
| #1 Assassinations and lawlessness in Benghazi - man, that place has sure gone downhill. Gonna be another Chicago if this keeps up. |
| Posted by: SteveS 2014-09-24 01:26 |